Decentralized blockchain technology has already disrupted traditional e-commerce with cryptocurrencies and peer-to-peer asset trading platforms, and it's on its way to disrupting traditional currency exchanges and contracts. Now, it's poised to take over another area of our lives: file storage. Storj is a service that aims to provide a way for people to store and host data that is safe, secure, cheap, and as private as possible.

Right now, the main choices available for those who want someplace to store files other than their own hard drive are Dropbox, Google Drive, and their ilk. They come with drawbacks, though, including high prices, the possibility of blackouts leaving your files inaccessible, and the fact that these companies have access to you things whenever they want.

With Storj, their decentralized P2P approach eliminates these problems, and pairs them with a new cryptocurrency that might soon be a good investment. Other good investments can be found on our list of the best altcoins of 2018.

Torrents and Storj

Storj's approach has its roots in something many of you are probably already familiar with: torrents. These services were peer-to-peer and allowed people to share and distribute files, including music and films, free of charge.

These torrent services allowed people to download fragments of files from multiple sources, called seeds, which would be recombined and assembled once all were downloaded. This allowed faster download times, but it was important in another way, too: it was decentralized. Since many people had copies of the same files, access to that file wouldn't be cut off if one person's connection was down.

Storj works in a very similar way.

Sharding Files

Storj uses something called file sharding, which works similarly to seeds. When you upload a file it's split up into shards which are hosted by different users. This way, not only is it faster to download (since you're not downloading the whole file from one source) but no one host has access to the whole file, keeping your data private.

Unlike seeds, file shards are only made known to the owner of the file or files. The blockchain contains the record of where all the shards are, but only with a private key can you assemble the information for where they all are.

Fail-safes: Parity Shards and Erasure Coding

What happens if one user hosting a shard goes offline, or no longer uses Storj? Copies of your files' shards are hosted on several computers at once, meaning if one of them disconnects, there's always another source to get the shard from. These are called parity shards.

But won't making copies of shards and hosting them everywhere just take up too much space? Storj has that covered. They've implemented erasure coding that automatically deletes excess copies of shards when there are too many.

Storj's Encryption

So you already know your files are going to be private, since sharding splits them up into pieces. But Storj has another level of privacy built in: encryption. That's right – each file is encrypted before it's broken into shards, meaning that even if someone who was hosting a shard of your file wanted to read it, they'd still need the encryption key.

Combine that with the fact that a person would have to get access to all shards by conning them their respective hosts into forking them over before they could even have a whole file to try and decrypt, and you've got yourself one seriously safe system. Other privacy-centered altcoins can be seen at our list of 2018's best cryptocurrency.

Verifying Files

To prevent something like, say, a host deleting a shard off their computer, Storj has yet another fail-safe in their system: file verification. This takes the form of regular “audits” of the farmers (file shard hosts) to make sure they have everything they're supposed to have. If they don't, they don't get paid. Since that's the whole reason farmers get involved with Storj, they would be wise to stay active and make sure they're maintaining all their shards properly.

The Bridge Server

One important question came up during Storj's development: what if I want to access my files from a different device? That's where Bridge comes in. It's a server that stores your private keys, so that you don't need to access your files only from your computer, where your keys are usually held.

In the future, Storj hopes to implement sharing of files and giving others access, which will require a permission system and identity verification. These features are yet to be released, but are on the docket.

Coin Capacity

Storj already has a sizable user base. With 20,000 clients and 18,000 farmers, the network also has 8 petabytes (or 8,000,000 GB) of space for storage. That's huge – and they're just getting started. The more farmers join the network, the more space the network will have for storage.

Right now the company is a part of the Ethereum blockchain.

Users only pay for the storage they need, and have the option of reducing their costs by offering up their own hard drives for hosting – being paid in the same coins they use to pay for space from others evens things out.

The Storj Token

The “payments” on the Storj network are paid in Storj tokens, or STORJ, instead of fiat or other cryptocurrency. It's mined with a proof-of-work algorithm much like Bitcoin. The total supply of STORJ coins is 500 million, and it's not clear whether new coins will be created, or if they'll be kept capped to prevent inflation.

The token now works on the Ethereum blockchain.

The Team Behind Storj

Storj was founded by Shawn Wilkinson, a blockchain developer who began in the Bitcoin community and went on to found Storj in 2014. The team also includes John Quinn, one of the co-founders, who has a background in finance and stock brokerage, including a spell spent with Deutsche Bank.

Other team members come from the startup community, with the total number of team members around 40. The company has a vested interest in community involvement, with lots of activity and volunteering from them regarding the network and its features.

Storj vs Siacoin

These services both focus on decentralized, low-cost data storage. Both utilize a user-driven hosting scheme that features payouts and payments in native cryptocurrency. Storj has a total of 8 PB of storage, while Siacoin only has 4.3 PB available in their network. Siacoin's service, Sia, offers a marketplace to go along with the other features offered, while Storj doesn't seem to have anything like that in the works – they're just focused on P2P file sharing and hosting. Both use a system that breaks files into fragments that are shared across multiple hosts.

Storj vs Filecoin

Here again we have two platforms that offer decentralized storing of data. Both were founded around the same time, in 2014. Both platforms use native tokens for paying users who host data, and both offer storage redundancy to make sure people always have access to their file fragments. It's not clear how tight Filecoin's security is, while Storj uses encryption on top of sharding to make sure users' data is never stolen or viewed without permission.

Storj vs MaidSafe

Very similar services: data storage on a decentralized network run by users who offer their extra hard drive space in return for tokens that can be exchanged elsewhere. Storj uses a blockchain, however, while MaidSafe's network does not. Both place a high value on privacy and file security. Storj is a working service at the moment, while MaidSafe hasn't been fully released yet. MaidSafe's tokens are only temporary, meant to be exchanged later for the “real” currency Safecoin once the network launches, while Storj's token doesn't have to be redeemed.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Storj “crypto”?
Yes, in that you can use its token as a method of payment.

Where can I read news about Storj?
On Reddit, crypto blogs, and on Twitter.

What is the Storj token?
It's referred to as STORJ – although it used to be “SJCX” when it was on the Bitcoin blockchain.

Is there a place for Storj coin on Reddit?
Yes, there's a community of people discussing it there.

Is Storj on CoinMarketCap?Yes.

What is Storj?
It's a decentralized file hosting network that places a focus on quick access, privacy, and low costs.

Is there a Storj coin Twitter?
Yes, you can see new updates and announcements there.

How do I buy Storj coin?
You can buy it on Upbit, Huobi, Binance, Gate.io, and Bittrex, among others.

Where can I read a review of the Storj service?
Crypto blogs are a good place to look, same goes for Medium.

What's the connection between Storj and Ethereum?
Storj now uses Ethereum as its host.

What's the price of the STORJ token?Around $1.07, last we checked.

What are the STORJ coin price predictions?
If the service adds new members and features, it could become more popular and widely-used, making its value go up.

What's the profitability of Storj mining?It depends on how much time and effort you put in, and what kind of rig you have.

Can I get STORJ coin at Bittrex?Yes.

Is there a Storj wallet?As of now, no, there's no official one.

Conclusion

As more platforms get released that want to take on data storage, most of them seem to be focusing on making it cheap for users to host their data. They want that to be the draw, it seems. Storj doesn't just offer low costs, but also two different layers of powerful encryption, something which will surely appeal to lots of people in the crypto community. But they're going to have some serious competition from other platforms like Sia and SAFE, and so if Storj wants to weather the storm, they'll would do well to make sure they develop and introduce powerful new features that will bring more people in, as well as up the value of their coin.

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